Oneida High School - Oneidan Yearbook (Oneida, NY)

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! DAN AGNE. For thirty-one years Dan Agne has been connected with Oneicla's public schools. ln August, l905, he was appointed janitor of Elizabeth Street School and then was transferred to the Senior High School on Main Street in l9l4. ln the spring of I928, when the new Senior High School on Elizabeth Street was opened, Mr. Agne became head janitor. Oneida High School students have thought of Dan as their friend for many years. Without him, Oneida High will not be quite the same. The Class of l936 wishes to express for the student body their sincere appreciation and the hope that Dan will enjoy his new leisure. 5 ' , iw,-.X 3 ,V ' ,

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TO MRS. FLORENCE McDOUGALL a teacher beloved and esteemed, whose personality has been a strong and helpful influence to us cluring our school days and whose inspiration will go with us thru all the years to come.

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Page Six THE ONEIDAN To the Class of 1936 Rene' Descartes, a French scientist of the early seven- teenth century, refused to accept the accumulated beliefs and superstitions of his time but accepted only the truths which could be proved. The fundamental fact which proved to him his own existence as a human being was expressed by him as follows: Cogito, ergo sum. I think, therefore, I am. That statement might well be taken as a test of education. Do you think? What do you think? What should you think? We know to how great an extent in our times thinking is being done for us. The newspaper syndicates, newsreel and news commentators, and organized political and economic progress by dissemination of certain ideas make us believe tvhat they want us to believe unless we are continually look- ing behind the news to find whence it comes and whether it is propaganda or truth. Freedom of thought is being attacked all over the world by censorship. Even in our own country some of the states are passing loyalty oath laws requiring teachers and students to take oaths of allegiance to state and federal constitutions, and in our national capital it has been against the law dur- ing the past year for a teacher even to mention communism. Such legislation seems hardly consistent with American prin- ciples of freedom of speech and press. Education should en- courage thinking and not suppress it. There has never been a time in our history when think- ing citizens have been more needed to understand and help solve the thorny problems of domestic and international affairs. To be sure, we cannot add one cubit to our stature by taking thought, but we can add many cubits to our mental stature. Let the proof of the fact that we have lived be the ability to say as did Descartes, Cogito, ergo sum. -ZORAIDA E. WEEKS, Class Adviser. Education , Education and learning are often referred to as synony- mous terms, when in reality they may be entirely different from one another. There are many learned people who are far from being educated. Because an individual is able to read Greek and Latin, or perhaps, memorize the logarithm table to seven decimal places, is no sign that he is educated. He may even be able to recite all the important events in modern history and quote Shakespeare by the hour and still not be educated. On the other ha.nd, there are men who have never crossed the threshold of a college door, men who have no concrete knowledge of what we term the essentials, who are truly educated. They are educated because they are able to successfully live with their fellow man in a complex environ- ment. They are educated because they have a breadth of vision which enables them to view all situations with a proper perspective to see the problem as a whole, and not become annoyed and fretful about the insignificant, petty trifles which lurk about every project of real magnitude. They are educated because they have cultivated a poise and stability of character which gives them a calmness similar to that of a lake of great depth or a massive mountain peak which towers toward the sky unchanged by storm, or calm. These are the people we seek out in times of trouble because their strength gives us courage and hcpe. Their well-balanced personalities afford a shelter to those of us who are easily disturbed about insignificant, imaginary, self- inducted problems. It is so easy to be small, to deal in petty personalities, to revel in biting sarcasm, to stoop to underhanded, unscrupulous methods of gain, to dabble with untruth all for a purpose. Even in the presence of learning, it is a mark of the un- educated. If our schools are to be the source from which our youth are to acquire strength of character and poise of personality, it is the duty of all in positions of authority to see to it that beyond the mere subject matter used as a means to an end, there must be kept in view as the ultimate objective ac- quisition of wisdom which means Education. -HOWARD F. KNAPP, Principal.